There are reports that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are shelling areas of the Donetsk Republic. Civilians are suffering. Yesterday alone, eight people were injured. The Petrovsky district of Donetsk, Gorlovka, Yasinovataya and a number of other settlements are under fire again. The situation is turbulent in the Lugansk People’s Republic: There were three attacks in the past day. The Ukrainian army used heavy artillery. Shells were also fired from the Smerch multiple launch rocket system. Several buildings were damaged in Pervomaisk, including an art school, a children’s sports complex, the city administration, and the pension fund administration.

Both day and night, under any weather conditions, even the most difficult ones, our pilots carry out combat missions on Su-34 fighter-bombers. Rare footage was provided by the Ministry of Defense. First, there are comprehensive preparations: It is crucial to check the systems operations, refuel the aircraft, equip them with weapons of destruction, and secure these under the wing. The fighter bombers also carry air-to-ground guided missiles. The footage shows how these are launched in dense clouds. All the strikes are exceptionally accurate. The pilots fly with heavy overloads. But they always do their job well.

Volunteers have an important mission these days. They distribute food and medicine to people in the liberated towns and villages. Life is not normal in areas, where fighting was still going on quite recently. There is no gas, no water, no electricity. Nationalists left behind devastation when they retreated. 

Infrastructure, which retreating nationalists tried to destroy as much as possible, has yet to be restored.

One resident said, “We shut ourselves away at home, lit a candle, and sat. We waited, we knew nothing … Of course, it was very hard, but we’ll live.” A volunteer, Kirill Gubarev said, “In the first few weeks, people really wanted bread because there was a time, in the first two, three weeks after the fighting, when there was no bread at all.”

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Lysenko along with an engineering and intelligence group under his command discovered nationalists, who were mining the access points to the town. They began fighting and, despite the superior forces of the enemies, defeated them.

The operational actions of Sergeant Denis Kaimakov, the commander of the crew of a rocket artillery platoon, made it possible to change the balance of power in the clash with the radicals, as a result, our military went on the counteroffensive.

A tank brigade led by senior lieutenant Abdu-Uali Zhusupov did not allow the militants to escape encirclement. About 100 nationalists attempted to break through, but their counterattack was stopped.

The delivery is part of a $800 million batch of military assistance, which the United States promised Kiev last week. The package contains a large number of shells and missiles for anti-tank systems, as well as howitzers. They were handed over to Kiev for the first time. The Pentagon said that in the coming days they will send their instructors who will show the Kiev security forces how to use the new equipment. Master classes will be held outside of Ukraine for certain members of the military, who will then pass on the knowledge to others.

While the American authorities are fuelling the situation by pumping weapons to Ukraine, their media has suddenly begun to see clearly.

Kiev security forces, it turned out, are far from innocent: They quietly use prohibited weapons and target civilians. For us, of course, this is not news. Moscow has repeatedly spoken about the crimes committed by Kiev, only the West has stubbornly ignored all the evidence. 

The paper published an article about an attack on the town Gusarovka near Kharkov. The article said that a cluster munition which landed next to Yulia Doroshenko’s house was not fired by Russian forces. Based on evidence reviewed by The New York Times, it is very likely to have been launched by the Ukrainian troops who were trying to retake the area.

The paper acknowledged two important facts: First, the Ukrainian army fired at civilian areas for almost a month. Second, they did this using weapons that inflict damage on the maximum number of people in civilian areas.

Alarming reports are now emerging from the Belgorod region about new shelling from the Ukrainian side. The shells exploded in a village located about 10 kilometers from the state border. This was confirmed by the governor of the region. At the moment, we know there was one victim and destruction.